1. Field of the Invention
Suede and leather cleaning is a very complex sub-division of the general textile cleaning industry. In the original tanning, the skins are treated with oils which tend to keep the skins soft and supple. Unfortunately these oils are soluble in dry cleaning solvents and if the leather is cleaned in the same manner as other textiles the oils will be removed causing the skins to lose the original supple characteristics. Also, because of direct sensitivity to heat, the dye stuffs used in leather cleaning are much more fugitive than those used in textile and, as such, a severe loss in original color is often the result of incorrect cleaning procedures.
Also, with the current new types of leather garments which are being introduced including calves skins, horse hides and sheep skins it is far more necessary to achieve close control of the cleaning solution since these new types of garments are much more sensitive to slight variations in the components of the cleaning mixture than the sheep skins which comprised approximately 90 percent of the leather garments made in the 1950's.
The present invention provides for the usage of a cleaning solvent which may be either of perchlorethylene or another conveniently available cleaning solvent. Cleaning additives will be mixed in varying amounts to the chosen cleaning solvent to provide the final cleaning liquid. Due to the great variety of leather garments now available, a plurality of cleaning liquids will be necessary. Each of these different cleaning liquids will include variable amounts of the cleaning additives in addition to the chosen solvent. The present invention shows a system utilizing five such baths.
2. Description of the Prior Art
The prior art devices in this field have commonly utilized multiple baths each one of which is adaptable to the cleaning of a particular class of leather or suede garments. Also, it is old in the art to continuously filter the impurities within each individual bath. It is also well known in the art to turn the liquid after completion of the washing to the particular tank from which the washing solution was originally obtained.
With such prior art devices a problem existed with respect to the quality control of the individual cleaning solution. Assuming that each bath was formed in the morning, by the end of the day the amount of fatty acids and other soluble and insoluble contaminants within the mixture would strongly inhibit the cleaning action of the cleaning liquid. The question of quality control was solely in the hands of the manual operator who upon visual inspection would determine that, for example, a new bath 4 should be mixed or, for example, half of a bath 2 should be drained and a new half portion inserted. Such hit or miss quality control is certainly not acceptable under the conditions of the current day with many more sensitive leather and suede garments.
Also, in addition to the question of quality control, the baths would continually be depleted in volume since a large amount of the solution would be retained within the garment after washing and spinning. On the average with leather and suede garments, 100 percent of the weight of the original garment will be retained in cleaning liquids within the garment itself when it is passed from the washing device into the dryer. This cleaning liquid is reclaimed at a later stage of the process, however for the purposes of the washing device it is lost until new baths are created on another day. Therefore, a system is required for continuously replenishing the amount of solution within each of the baths being utilized.
The present invention provides a system for continuous cleaning of soluble and insoluble impurities from each individual bath as well as for the replenishing of the volumes within the baths resulting from depletion by retention by the washed garments.